The race to succeed New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who’s leaving office after three terms, has gone negative early.

As reported in this Reuters story, a New York state Democratic senator was arrested Tuesday and charged with bribery for trying to buy a place on the ticket for New York City’s mayoral race. But five other politicians, three Republicans and two Democrats, also were arrested and accused of accepting more than $100,000 in bribes in connection with the scheme.

New Yorkers will choose their new mayor in November.

“From time to time the question arises, how common is corruption in New York?” Reuters quoted Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara as saying in a press conference. “Based on the cases that we have brought and continue to bring, it seems downright pervasive.”

We’re all for encouraging people to pass on big sugary sodas and consume healthy foods and beverages.

But we have always contended that New York City’s ban on selling large cups of soda was a step too far, allowing government to intrude on personal liberty.

And when a judge on Monday overturned the ban, we thought it was the right call.

Justice Milton A. Tingling Jr. of State Supreme Court in Manhattan issued a permanent injunction against the New York City Board of Health decision to ban the sale of sugary drinks in cups larger than 16 ounces.

Not only did the justice find the ban arbitrary and capricious, since it did not attempt to regulate other highly caloric big drinks. In addition, it didn’t apply to sales outlets that were not under the purview of the board of health, such as convenience stores.

The justice also found the board of health overstepped its authority in implementing the ban.

“The Portion Cap Rule, if upheld, would create an administrative Leviathan and violate the separation of powers doctrine,” Tingling wrote.

The Bloomberg administration has vowed to appeal, but it seems for now that freedom of choice has prevailed.

As if the battered ‘Jersey shore and New York City haven’t seen enough trouble.

The word on Wednesday was that the state was facing another storm — a nor’easter that blew into the metro area bringing wet snow and more damage.

Of course, it wasn’t the magnitude of storm that Sandy was and thank goodness. New Jersey and New York still is suffering Sandy’s effects, and 672,000 homes — most of them in NJ — still are without power including 22,000 attributable to the new storm. Hundreds of flights were canceled.

For a storm-weary region ready to get back to normal, it’s almost too much to bear.

A New York teacher was grotesquely irresponsible when she duped her fifth grade students into writing holiday cards to a prison inmate — one who had been charged with child pornography possession.

Melissa Dean had her students make handmade Christmas cards for unspecified lonely people. She actually sent them to a friend of hers, who had been convicted of violating an order of protection and illegal weapons possession, according to the New York Times.

The intended recipient was John Coccarelli, who had been “charged in 2008 with possessing child pornography, but that charge was never brought to trial because he pleaded guilty to a charge calling for a longer sentence,” prosecutors said, according to the Times.

Some children balked at putting their names on the cards, but the teacher added them anyway. Dean was issued a letter of warning by New York’s Conflicts of Interest board, a punishment that would have been more harsh if Dean had not quit her teaching job in June. The Education Department had sought to have her fired.

The only bright spot in this sordid tale is that alert prison officials intercepted the cards before they reached the inmate. Thank goodness.

Joanne Ostrow did not try to hide her disdain for intelligent design in her column “‘Nova’ revisits Pa. creationists’ defeat in court” (DP 11/11/07). It is ironic that her own column took her planning and design, but she buys evolution which relies on time and change to “create” a complex world. Darwin himself was not such a cheerleader for his own theory. “I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science” — Darwin quote cited by Adrian Desmond and James Moore, “Darwin,” (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991) p. 456.

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s abrupt involvement in the private business affairs between KDVR and a nearby builder attempting to construct affordable apartments doesn’t portent well for private enterprise in Denver. Read more…

I cannot believe it has been 10 years since John Denver died. As did Cory La Bianca, I also grew up in the ’60s and ’70s in upstate New York and for some reason John Denver’s music spoke to me then. As I got older, I found myself listening to John’s music, not only for familiar songs, but listening to the words that he put to music. When he died, a part of me died that day also. Read more…

No one in the debate on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is a convincing fiscal conservative, as you point out about President Bush. And you are correct that our budgets should reflect our values. The question is if the only value that applies to children and their parents is socialism. What about values like individual rights, freedom and personal responsibility? Why must aid to the “poor” be extended to millions who already have private insurance? Read more…

Thank you, Denver Post, for the story about the play about Rachel Corrie, the young woman run down by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to stop the destruction of a Palestinian home. It is disturbing to learn about the lengths to which the playwright and director had to go to get the play on stage here in Denver. It makes me proud of Denver, though, that it is possible to see the play here, whereas the theater owners in New York ran away from it as too controversial. Read more…

Vincent Carroll is The Denver Post's editorial page editor. He has been writing commentary on politics and public policy in Colorado since 1982 and was originally with the Rocky Mountain News, where he was also editor of the editorial pages until that newspaper gave up the ghost in 2009.

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